


keep your proud head from falling

by Cerberusia



Category: Naruto
Genre: Anonymous Sex, Deception, Incest, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Sibling Incest, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-03 21:20:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15827163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerberusia/pseuds/Cerberusia
Summary: A man in black approaches Sasuke in Tea Country.





	keep your proud head from falling

**Author's Note:**

> This ought to be part of the ficlet collection for ItaSasu Kink Bingo prompts, but they're all around 500 words and this grew to 2K, so it gets its own fic.
> 
> The prompt was 'anonymity'.

A man in black approaches Sasuke in Tea Country.

"It's so lovely to see young Konoha genin so eager to take on missions in our country," he says, his pale green gaze sweeping over Team 7. Naruto, caught in the act of swiping one of Sakura's dango, nearly falls out of his seat as Sakura drops her iron grip on his collar to thank the stranger prettily. Sasuke, leaning back from the table into their shadowy corner of the small teahouse, doesn't even uncross his arms.

"Please," says the stranger, "enjoy our hospitality." He produces a fresh plate of dango sticks, which Naruto promptly falls on with enthusiasm.

"Idiot," says Sasuke once the man leaves. "If you die because you ate dango some weirdo gave you, I'll make sure it goes on your gravestone that you died of your own stupidity."

At this point Kakashi returns to calm the ensuing chaos. But Sasuke is barely listening. When the stranger paused and raised his hand to open the door, his sleeve had fallen back to reveal black-varnished nails.

~*~*~

Staying at an inn means sharing a room with all his teammates, but it's more comfortable than camping. Sasuke unrolls his futon and listens to Naruto clattering about at the sink, humming out-of-tune as he brushes his teeth. Sakura is modestly attired in one of the inn's yukata, brushing her hair and studiously ignoring the boys. Outside the window, a crow caws.

Sasuke thinks nothing of it until all of them - Naruto, Sakura, Kakashi and him - are all tucked up inside their futons. He rolls over and catches sight of a glimmer - a street lantern reflecting off the crow's beady eye.

If he leaves the room, the crow won't be perched on the rail when he makes it outside. For a long moment, boy and bird stare at each other. Sasuke recognises the intelligent gleam in the crow's gaze, or thinks he does. It's as if the crow is waiting for something. For Sasuke to do something. 

Sasuke returns its cool, bright stare, though he's aware that his pyjama top is slipping down his shoulder to give him a vulnerable air. 

The crow cocks its head and makes it obvious that it's looking at his bare shoulder, bleached by the moonlight. 

Sasuke lets his shirt slip another inch. Deliberately. The crow doesn't look away.

This is ridiculous. It's only a crow. Sasuke's mind is playing tricks on him.

He toys with the idea of taking his shirt off entirely. It's a warm night: if anybody were to wake up, it wouldn't seem strange. The crow's beady eye seems to take in all of Sasuke with an avaricious gaze.

He takes his pyjama top off. Not slowly, because that would be weird, but pulled over his head like normal. When he looks up again, the crow is still there. It pins Sasuke to the spot as effectively as any genjutsu. Its unblinking avian stare feels heavy, lustful and possessive. It watches him like it knows him, like it knows his body already, like it's just waiting for Sasuke to reveal himself fully. Its glossy black feathers have the sheen of human hair.

"Sasuke? You OK?" That's Kakashi's voice, a murmur in the quiet inn room.

"Fine." Sasuke lies back down. The blanket tickles at his bare skin. He knows without looking that the crow is gone.

~*~*~

The woman they're assigned to guard on this C-rank has the most annoying laugh Sasuke has ever heard. This doesn't seem to bother the young man who's cosying up to her in one of the inn's private rooms. He's a few years older than them, and his graceful movements are those of what Sasuke has just begun to recognise as a classier variant of prostitute. She's playing with his hair, making as if to pull out the tie; at which point it will spill, with artful dishevelment, over his narrow shoulders. Sasuke has seen the technique before. If his hair were long enough, he could probably imitate it.

(He remembers somebody else pulling his hair out of its loose ponytail before bed. In his memory it come with a waft of shampoo-smell, but Itachi would never have used scented products in case it gave him away on missions.)

Kakashi catches his eye, and they silently withdraw just as she does, indeed, untie the boy's hair. She's not supposed to be a high-profile target. They can guard her perfectly well from outside the chamber where she's having her intimate tete-a-tete and no doubt rather more in due course.

By the time Sakura comes to relieve him, the only light coming through the windows is the moon. The woman is talking, murmuring - compliments, Sasuke thinks. They're quiet, as these things go, but the rustling of clothes and the occasional sound of pleasure gives away what's really happening inside. Sasuke almost feels sorry for Sakura: he knows that having to listen to this will embarrass her.

He slips away down the dark corridor, careful to make no sound on the wooden inn floor. Few other people are awake. He sees just one pair coming back late from the baths, flushed with the heat. He passes their room, where Naruto must be - he can actually hear his faint snores through the door, like a woodsman sawing logs. _Several_ woodsmen.

He should go in, but he wants a piss and some fresh air first. The woman's rooms were perfumed with incense, and the smell seems to be following him.

The night air is cool but almost still. Sasuke leans on the inn wall and observes the silent, deserted street. An owl hoots somewhere down the street. If he really concentrates, he can hear the trickle of water from the river, though all he can see is the bridge at the horizon. It's peaceful, but full of promise if you know where to look. Sasuke knows what happens behind these closed doors.

"Excuse me," murmurs a low voice. Sasuke only doesn't startle only because he'd sensed a person's chakra coming out of the inn - the intruder's footsteps are almost silent. He turns to find a boy maybe the same age as the prostitute inside, and just as pretty. He's a classic kind of beauty, with long, loose black hair framing a white face. His eyes are heavy-lidded and Sasuke thinks he might be wearing eyeshadow. He turns his head, and the moonlight reveals his artificially flushed cheek. Another boy-whore, then.

He leans against the wall of the inn, next to Sasuke, but appears to be looking up at the moon. Sasuke takes the opportunity to study him covertly. No visible weapons, and no obvious concealed weapons either; though his padded hanten could no doubt hide several kunai. He tries not to look like he's peering into the boy's kimono, mostly open to the waist to reveal what is presumably meant to be a tantalising hint of pale skin. Kakashi has admitted that their client appeared to be exaggerating the threat to her person; but assassins come in many guises. Prostitutes are popular choices for suborning for more nefarious purposes.

"You're pretty," says the boy. Sasuke meets his gaze, then looks away. He isn't going to encourage him. He knows he doesn't look like a civillian, and the boy has to have recognised the forehead protector, so who knows what he thinks he'll get out of a thirteen-year-old shinobi.

The boy slides closer.

"I'm not interested in your services," says Sasuke gruffly. The boy snorts.

"I'm not offering them, unless you're secretly the heir to some kind of ninja fortune. And, no offense, but you don't look like you are."

Sasuke bares his teeth, but makes no comment. The boy is right, though that doesn't explain why he's hanging around.

"Shouldn't you be looking for customers out there?" Sasuke asks pointedly. The fact that he's not points in the direction of him being an assassin. At least that might liven up this otherwise extremely dull mission.

The boy just smiles.

"What kind of boy do you think I am? I don't go _looking_ ; they come to _me_." Sasuke mentally upgrades him to 'boy-whore with pretensions'. He's clearly higher-class than a common streetwalker, but he's not dressed elaborately enough to be a true 'courtesan'. He's probably the attendant to a real one: the top ladies of the night often have a handsome boy in their retinue. In which case he'd be right that his clientele come to him, and he'll have a room to receive them in too, just like in the woodblock prints of men and boys.

"Your mistress must be wondering where you are."

"Oh no, she's entertaining her own clients. I'm just out for some air." If Sasuke is correctly interpreting the look the boy is currently giving him, he's looking for a lot more than that.

He lets himself really consider it. The boy is _very_ handsome; in a bigger city, he'd surely have the attention of the portrait-painters and probably have been whisked off to be some rich man's catamite already. And he's very willing. And to Sasuke, who is just beginning to realise his own inclinations, the whole thing sounds excitingly forbidden. The boy is _right there_ , offering - something, sex, anything. Sasuke could take him up on it. Nobody would have to know.

But Sasuke is also properly cautious, if not paranoid. He knows the boy could have any number of other motives in play - if indeed he's even a prostitute at all. He doesn't _look_ like a rival shinobi; but then, neither had Haku.

So Sasuke is prepared to ignore him for as long as it takes for him to go away. But the boy puts a hand on his arm, and it's not the soft, small hand of a boy, but a man's hand, rough with calluses. The hand of a shinobi.

The boy smiles at him. His eyes are dark, dark brown, almost black. Is there something familiar about those eyes?

"C'mon, let me show you a good time." His nails are painted a delicate shell pink, but Sasuke can imagine them in quite a darker colour. He stares into the boy's smiling face. The hand on his arm is the hand that throttled him, pinned him against a wall as he struggled for breath.

"So is it shinobi you like, or just boys?" The boy's smile grows wider. He understands that this is Sasuke acquiescing at last.

"Come closer, and I'll tell you."

So he leans in closer, until their bodies are pressed together and he can taste the boy's sweet breath. The boy's eyelashes are long, and they brush his cheek as he looks down, as if demure. Sasuke supposes it must drive the men wild. He waits for a drawn-out, heart-stopping moment until the boy leans down to kiss him. His mouth tastes like dango.

Sasuke returns his kiss with a ferocity that might have surprised the boy, if he were really a boy-whore. They wrap their arms around each other, and underneath his jasmine perfume the boy smells like leather conditioner and old blood.

This is Sasuke's first kiss. He mouth inexpertly at the boy, thrusts his tongue between soft lips. The boy kisses without the air of an experienced seducer, and with too much passion for a casual encounter. But what would Sasuke know? It's not like he's an expert.

Sasuke clumsily presses the boy against the wall, as if they're grappling. The boy lets himself be pushed, but shoves one hand into Sasuke's hair to better control the kiss. He has an erection, Sasuke can feel it, and Sasuke has one too.

They do it right there, up against the wall. The boy - who isn't really a boy, or at least not this boy - takes him, fucks him, just like they've both wanted for years. Sasuke's face is turned to the wall as the boy takes him from behind - all the better to imagine a different face, a real face. Beneath the kimono, the body is more man than boy; and his voice keeps breaking into a lower pitch that Sasuke knows so well after it dripped poisonous thoughts in his ear.

"Sasuke...Sasuke," the boy whispers into his neck, the name he shouldn't know. His tight, tender grip on Sasuke's hips is too strong for a civillian.

Legs shaky with orgasm, Sasuke leans on the wall and regards him for a moment. The moonlight turns him into an ink painting. But Sasuke recognises the face now: Daito, the most beautiful of all his cousins. He had landed on his back, and lay as if in repose, his sightless eyes fixed on the body of his infant sister and his white throat a mess of gore.

Itachi's eyes stare out of Daito's face. Itachi's delicate smile curves those lips.

Sasuke aims his kunai for the heart - but Itachi is already gone.


End file.
